How Many Bottles Do You Have / Keep Open?

[Masset1982]

7 hours ago, Louisiana said:

 

 

Man. All you do is drink the good stuff!!!

 

Cheers, Jeff

 

 

 

I like the good stuff! 

Cheers!

Will

[jeffrey r]

 

That is more open bottles than most bars - how long would it take you to get through all that?  Must be party central there!

To be frank, I think that many of us here on SB have collections that blow away most bars. Bars are there for what they do. Our collections are in our homes for what we do. I probably have 75 + bottles open as well. That includes a lot of bourbon and rye, a smattering of Irish, and now quite a bit of scotch.

I like variety, so I don't look at it as a problem that I can choose amongst various options among brands like WT, BT, HH, etc., or various options within those brands. I don't kill bottles regularly, but they go when they go. If a bottle is sitting in my bunker and I don't have that particular bottle open, then I will open it if I want to. It ain't doing me any good sitting unopened, now is it...

[beasled]

About 25. Been trying to kill a few off but the extra room a killed bottle provides just invites me to fill it with something else. 

 

Unfortunately there's another 25 bottles of scotch open too.. 

 

[Jace]

I always have a couple of bourbons and a couple of scotch whiskies open, and am getting good at keeping it at about 2-4 of each. Finishing them off quick as soon as they reach 1/4.

 

Only bottle I'm having trouble killing is my GTS'15... Not that much better than Stagg jr.3(in my opinion, I think bourbon peaks at about 7-10 years), but I just know I'll probably never get another bottle. It's been open for over a year, and it's still at about 4/5...

[tanstaafl2]

14 hours ago, Tony Santana said:

Geez, I'm almost starting to feel bad.  Almost.  Roughly 75 open bourbons, another 30-40 other whiskeys.  If I get down to less than a half a bottle to a third of a bottle I'll either work harder to polish it off or transfer to a smaller bottle.  I'll use that preserve stuff with the more expensive bottles if they've been open for a while.

 

No need to feel bad Tony! Some of us have a few more than that open whether we would like to admit it or not.

 

I have about this many open.

 

 

Oh wait, that is just the Scotch (well, some of the Scotch. Can't put the good stuff out or those vampires will drink it all! ) . There are probably twice as many bourbons and ryes. Not to mention assorted other American whiskies as well as Canadian, Irish, Japanese, Australian and various and sundry other countries.

 

And we probably shouldn't get into the other brown spirits like rum, tequila, mezcal and brandy. Or the gin! Plenty of gin to go around, barrel aged and otherwise. And liqueurs and amaros and other assorted mixers. I tend to be more worried about some of those going bad faster than any of the higher proof spirits. 

 

Bourbon (and every other kind of liquor) zen can't arrive fast enough! I am running out of room...

[TehMik]

And here I thought I was bad with anywhere between 6-10 bottles open. I don't really have the space for more (apartment living has its drawbacks), so I generally have 1-2 bourbons I'm ok using as mixers (WT, BT), and 3-5 ones that can go either way as far as being enjoyed neat or in a drink (MM, etc), and then 2-3 nice bottles just for sipping (ETL, EHT, etc).

[Max Power]

I'm probably in the range of 200 bottles open right now.  25 bourbon, 35 scotch, 150ish tequila and maybe 10 of other spirits.  

[JT3NSB]

7 minutes ago, Max Power said:

I'm probably in the range of 200 bottles open right now.  25 bourbon, 35 scotch, 150ish tequila and maybe 10 of other spirits.  

margs at your place, eh?   seriously, impressive tequila program!

[ebo]

I used to have 300+ bottles of Scotch, Bourbon, Irish, Indian and Japanese. My life situation took a drastic change, so, I now have one or two bottles on hand and open, ant any given time. I'm strictly a Bourbon guy now. I just can't afford anything else..... and even that is going to come to an end if prices keep heading north.

[flahute]

4 hours ago, tanstaafl2 said:

 

No need to feel bad Tony! Some of us have a few more than that open whether we would like to admit it or not.

 

I have about this many open.

 

 

Oh wait, that is just the Scotch (well, some of the Scotch. Can't put the good stuff out or those vampires will drink it all! ) . There are probably twice as many bourbons and ryes. Not to mention assorted other American whiskies as well as Canadian, Irish, Japanese, Australian and various and sundry other countries.

 

And we probably shouldn't get into the other brown spirits like rum, tequila, mezcal and brandy. Or the gin! Plenty of gin to go around, barrel aged and otherwise. And liqueurs and amaros and other assorted mixers. I tend to be more worried about some of those going bad faster than any of the higher proof spirits. 

 

Bourbon (and every other kind of liquor) zen can't arrive fast enough! I am running out of room...

This is amazing.........

An inspiration to us all. 

[JNeff33]

Currently have 101 in stock, with 89 open, more to follow this week I'm sure with family in town. Happy holidays to all!

[fanostra]

22 open, not counting non whiskey/bourbon. Glad to read this thread because I wanted to knock off a couple bottles before opening a new one. But looks like my count is relatively fairly low, so think I'll take comfort in that and crack open a RR SiB tonight!

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, fanostra said:

22 open, not counting non whiskey/bourbon. Glad to read this thread because I wanted to knock off a couple bottles before opening a new one. But looks like my count is relatively fairly low, so think I'll take comfort in that and crack open a RR SiB tonight!

Yeah the contributors to this thread have definitely given me some open-bottle-count reassurance, which is what I was hoping for!  And tanstaafl2 has given us all something to aim for... : )

[jvd99]

2 hours ago, JNeff33 said:

Currently have 101 in stock, with 89 open, more to follow this week I'm sure with family in town. Happy holidays to all!

As a fellow Spartan, I can understand the need for a lot of open bottles while watching their football team this year 

[JNeff33]

1 hour ago, jvd99 said:

As a fellow Spartan, I can understand the need for a lot of open bottles while watching their football team this year 

Yeah it was a tough one that included many pours, but one I wouldn't have traded the previous three for. Just hope that '17 will be a rebound or else some of those bottles may be finished sooner than later.

[BMartin42]

As a fellow Spartan, I can understand the need for a lot of open bottles while watching their football team this year 

Imagine being an Illini married to an East Lansing born and raised Spartan. I need to go open a few more bottles.


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[Mule Skinner]

Just 14 for me.  11 of that being bourbon and whiskey.

[Dgriffin]

I am not anywhere close to most of you guys. I currently have 9 bottles of bourbon/ whiskey ( 6 open and 3 closed).

[tanstaafl2]

On ‎12‎/‎20‎/‎2016 at 7:29 PM, flahute said:

This is amazing.........

An inspiration to us all. 

 

I can think of at least one person in my house for which inspiration would not be the operative word.

[flahute]

16 minutes ago, tanstaafl2 said:

 

I can think of at least one person in my house for which inspiration would not be the operative word.

I have someone like that in my house too.

[Masset1982]

On 21/12/2016 at 1:34 AM, JNeff33 said:

Currently have 101 in stock, with 89 open, more to follow this week I'm sure with family in town. Happy holidays to all!

I'm not the only one who's drinking the good stufff, nice selection! 

 

Cheers ! 

[JNeff33]

4 minutes ago, Masset1982 said:

I'm not the only one who's drinking the good stufff, nice selection! 

 

Cheers ! 

Thanks Will, we all strive for a good pour!

[Kepler]

On 12/18/2016 at 5:27 PM, Harry in WashDC said:

My unopened ones take up as much space - bottle for bottle - as my opened ones.

 

Kidding aside, I HAVE gone through the exercise of explaining to my wife (a) why I need to have so many open (about a dozen bourbons, half a dozen ryes, and not counting liqueurs or other distilled spirits) and (b) why they all need to be close at hand in the dining room except for the two (sometimes three) in the TV room.  The result of that conversation was: unopened now get neatly stored in the basement in marked boxes, and the opened ones are being reduced in number, and that number now includes the "no more than two" in the TV room.  In sum, I learned the hard way what you already knew. 

But how many do you keep in the trash can?   

[Kepler]

On 12/18/2016 at 7:53 AM, dave1022 said:

 

How necessary is this?  I've never worried about it and viewed open bottles as indefinitely stable.  How wrong am I??

There is research out there that describes the impact that air headspace inside the bottle has over time.  You can look it up.  Here is an interesting read that also covers the impact of temperature and lighting:  http://www.breakingbourbon.com/bourbon-storage-experiment.html

 

[Kepler]

Lately I keep around a dozen bottles open at any given time.

 

I find that sometimes I enjoy focusing on fewer bottles, drinking from only those until they are empty, rather than jumping around across a bunch of different samples.  

 

In fact, I don't know that I ever enjoyed sipping whiskies more than in the old days when I could only afford one good expensive "sipper" bottle at a time.  Like when I got something special for Christmas, like my first Blanton's or Bookers.  Those were the good old days, simple times... but just as enjoyable (if not more so) than today when I have a big collection and a huge bunker of unopened bottles.